To protect software manufacturers' intellectual property rights in software sold to the public, manufacturer's commonly license software to the purchaser. Additionally, in many applications the purchaser has purchased a large number of licenses, commonly referred to as rights to use (RTUs), which are used across many different sites in an enterprise. In particular, a customer may purchase a number of licenses for a release or version of a particular software package for a customer premise telecommunication switching system. Many times the customer also has an enterprise network which includes telecommunication switching systems located at several different sites. Rather than purchase licenses for each individual site, it is often more cost effective to purchase all of the licenses for all of the sites in a bulk package. The licenses may be used across various sites where different telecommunication switching systems are used. In certain instances a customer may need to change the number of licenses for particular sites. For example, a company may initially require 1000 licenses at site A, and 2000 licenses at site B. Due to personnel shifts, the company may later require 500 licenses at site A, and 2500 licenses at site B. Portability of licenses between different sites for an organization is known as “enterprise wide licensing” or “EWL.” EWL may also be advantageous for balancing loads at different sites. For example, an enterprise may have three telecommunications switches and thirty total licenses which are initially distributed as ten licenses per switch. It may then be determined that one of the switches has a heavier volume than the other two, and it would be useful to have additional licenses at that site. In such a case, efficient EWL would be advantageous.
Traditionally, number of licenses available at a site, after the initial license distribution, had to be manually adjusted, which commonly involved contacting the software distributor and obtaining the adjustment of the licenses. This also typically required a technician from the software distributor to visit the sites to install files which allow for the adjusted number of licenses. Thus, it would be advantageous for such a customer to have portability of the licenses, allowing them to automatically adjust the number of licenses available for any given site without requiring the installation of separate files, and without requiring a service call from a technician. As is known, the number of licenses simply indicates the total number of copies of the software package which may be operated at a given time. Accordingly, the licenses control the number of copies of the software package which are available at any given time. Thus, the control of licenses may also be viewed as controlling the number of copies of a software package.
A similar type of problem is present in the high definition digital video content industry. In this case, a content provider which provides high definition digital content needs to limit the available copying of that digital content. Many content providers, such as broadcast television content providers, are required to allow for fair use copying, such as copying for time-shift purposes, but want to limit other copying. This problem is particularly important for devices which are able to digitally record the digital content. In such cases, there is no deterioration in quality for the copy, and additional copies may be made with no deterioration. Accordingly, there is a large piracy concern for such digital content communication.
Traditionally, two schemes have been commonly used to protect content providers from unauthorized copying. One scheme, known as Macrovision™, provides an inherent instability within the picture. When the picture goes through an analog conversion, the instability becomes apparent, degrading the picture. However, this scheme only works if the copying is performed using an analog conversion. As digital recording technology advances, digital recording mediums and hardware to record digitally are become more common. Thus, this scheme will not be effective against copying which is performed using a digital recording medium.
A second scheme is a software restriction on digital transfer of high definition picture. One such method is known as 1080i, which is a digital transmission format defined by the Advanced Television Systems Committee. Embedded in the 1080i digital transmission is an identified transmission quality of picture. This embedded digital encoding is picked up at the receiver, which determines if the transmission is copy protected. While this method can be effective in allowing copying or not allowing copying, it is not flexible with respect to the amount of copying allowed for certain content. For example, in many cases a content provider may need to allow copies of certain content for fair use time-shift purposes. Using this method, if copying of the content is allowed, additional copies may be made following the recording of the original copy. Accordingly, it would be useful to have a system which would allow a single fair use copy, or limited fair use copies, to be made of such content, and limit any additional copies which are made of the content.
Another method to limit copying of content is known as IEEE1394 or “Firewire.” If picture is copy encoded, it is trusted that the receiver will not allow a copy to be made. If the receiver is an original source (i.e. a personal video recorder or “PVR”), a limit on the copies may be given. However, a drawback of this method is that pirates can defeat the digital copy encoding in a relatively simple manner, by locating the information containing the permitted copying information and altering this information to allow for unlimited copies. For example, if a Digital Video Disk (DVD) contains information related to permissible copying of the digital content, a pirate may locate the area on the surface of the disk which contains this information. The pirate may then alter that area such that the information cannot be read, which results in copies being able to be made.
In order to attempt to limit unauthorized copying, content providers may also encrypt the signal. In such a case, the pirate may also defeat the encryption. While encryption is somewhat effective, it requires that encryption keys be distributed in a secure manner. Decoding the encryption also degrades the performance of a video system, and can potentially cause a fault if there is an error in the decryption. Thus, it would be advantageous to provide a method for copy protection which does not rely on copy encoding data in the digital content, and does not require encryption.
Another method for limiting copying of digital content is a failed technology known as DIVX. This technology required a digital player which contacted, via a telephone connection, a center which granted permission to view the digital content. This technology was not successful and raised a number of privacy concerns, as people did not want it to be recorded every time they viewed a movie. Furthermore, permission was required from the authorization source any time the product was viewed. Thus, unlimited copies of the digital content could be made, and the content only viewed upon the grant of permission by the authorization center. This had the effect of removing any incentive for a producer to make any copies of such content, because the content could be copied freely, and an end user would simply pay when the content was actually viewed. Thus, it would be advantageous to provide a copy protection system which maintains incentive for producers to manufacture copies of digital content.
Another problem area in software and digital content distribution may occur following the distribution of the software or some digital content. Following this distribution, it may be determined that the software or digital content violates a law or some rights of another owner. In the event that such a situation arises, it would be advantageous to limit the amount of additional copying which may be done for the software or digital content. For example, a first customer may purchase 10,000 licenses for telecommunications switching software and divide the number of licenses between two sites, with each site receiving 5000 licenses. The license purchase agreement may specify that the customer is to pay the software distributor an amount of $10,000 per month for one year. If the customer then fails to pay the software distributor, it would be advantageous to provide a solution which does not allow the customer to move copies of the software between the sites. Thus, if the customer in this example, after failing to pay the license fee, wishes to move 1,000 licenses from the first site to the second site, it would be useful to the software distributor to be able to deny the movement of the licenses until proper payment is made. Similarly, if a digital content provider determines that the content which is distributed violates an intellectual property right, it would be useful for the content provider to deny any additional copies of the content from being made. For example, a content provider may distribute a movie in digital format, and later discover that a scene in the movie contains a copyrighted image which the copyright owner demands not be reproduced. In such a case, if the content provider cannot resolve the dispute with the copyright owner, it would be useful to deny that any additional copies of the content be made, thus limiting the amount of damages to the copyright owner.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to have a mechanism which provides copy protection for software and digital content while not inhibiting authorized use. It would also be advantageous for the mechanism to not require encryption, and which also does not require transmission of information every time a customer views the content.